Coptic, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic languages, is the final development
of the ancient Egyptian language. It is derived from the popular tongue of
the so called New Empire and uses the Greek alphabet complemented with six
letters from Demotic, an earlier form of Egyptian writing since the 7th
century B.C.

Beginning with the 1st century A.D. Coptic writing started to replace the
complicated Hieroglyphic system and became the official written language
during the 3rd century by the spread of Christianity and Christian texts.
In addition to this, gnostic, Manichaean and profane texts are important
parts of Coptic literature.

After the Arabian conquest of Egypt in 641 A.D. and the spread of the
Islam, Coptic was abandoned as colloquial and written language in favour of
Arabic even by the Christian population. Until now Coptic is used as
liturgical language of the Coptic Church.

The present volume is an introduction to Sahidic Coptic, the starting-point
for any coptic study. The emphasis has been put on basic matters relevant
to the needs of the beginner.

The volume contains: the basic structure of the morphology with special
reference to the verbal system; the principles of the different syntactical
constructions (main and subordinate clauses - both with translated
examples); a sample text with interlinear phonetic transcription and
translation; an extensive bibliography with references to more specialized
literature and an index.

This comprehensive introduction to Coptic is based on the experience of
almost a decade of continuous teaching and was also used successfully for
self-studies.